In the 1960s there developed a growing interest in and supportive evidence for programs to alter intellectual competence, particularly in young children. The abilities concept, which is used to classify people by abilities, is not well suited to teaching intellectual competencies or assessing changes in competence. A new concept, intellectual skill, is needed to serve as a basis for specifying behaviors which underlie task mastery. An intellectual skill may be defined as a behavioral capability that functions to facilitate the performance of a culturally relevant task. Three criteria for distinguishing intellectual skills from other behavioral phenomena are: (1) a definition of skill behavior in performance terms; (2) demonstration of transfer effects; and (3) use of tasks that are culturally relevant. The intellectual skills concept can be applied to curriculum design and psychological services. The writer used the latter application in a consultation process model. The consultation approach offers several advantages: (1) it provides data showing the functional relationship between the teaching of skills and the accomplishment of a criterion task; (2) it can validate the applicability of research findings and serve as a means of generating hypotheses for controlled laboratory research; (3) the time series design is efficient and practical; (4) it offers immediacy of application; and (5) it demands that the problem be identified in performance terms. References are provided. (KM)